I just need a nice Linux distro where I don't have to spend any time coding to install software.. I don't want to type in code to install things but I also don't want to move to Windows 11.

Most modern Linux have optional GUIs for package management — software packaged by your distro mantainers — often integrated with flathub — a website for downloading and installing distro agnostic software, with limited access to system resources, like android’s permissions — and system management.

Generally we prefer to type in "code" as it is very straightforward and faster as well. For Windows, you go to system settings, install updates, wait a while, and reboot to install updates. This only updates Windows itself and some of their software, i.e. drivers, office, etc.

For linux it depends on the distro, but for Debian/Ubuntu based ones it goes something like this in a terminal emulator:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
flatpak update

Each line is executed independently, and roughly translating them in order of appearance:

• sudo means do the following command with administrator privileges;
• apt is Debian’s package manager tool;
• apt update is an apt command that checks if there any new packages for either your system or installed software;
• apt upgrade is also an apt command to install these latest packages;
• flatpak is a tool to manage distro agnostic packages, commonly from flathub;
• flatpak update checks and install new versions of the installed packages.

While the explanation is a bit long winded, these commands runs in seconds to a few minutes, depending on how long it has been since the last update. It might be necessary to reboot afterwards, specially if you have nvidia graphics, for example. But it updates all the software you obtained through them, without the song and dance of going to each vendor’s website or third parties. They vetoed all of them in your stead.

Mind you, while flatpak apps from flathub may have unstrusted software — which also have a limited access to the system — your distro has higher concern for safety than Windows by not making you download an random executable from a website.

Consider joining the tens of thousands of people who've moved on to Linux Mint Cinnamon in the past year.

I've used Mint since for a dozen years, and have -never- learned to compile a program. Mint's software manager will display the thousands of wares (by category) and install (and even start) them for you. The updates manager makes sure you get all you need ... when you feel like it.

P.S. I built my first computer in 1978. I use Linux by choice.

Kubuntu may be a good distro for you. Linux Mint is also great.

Once you download and write the image to a USB drive, you can live boot into the drive without modifying your existing Windows installation. So you can test drive it without committing to switch to it.

Yeah, but David killed Goliath with a slingshot and a pebble

Yeah, Same here honestly

As some one who lives in Excel, IMHO Calc is 80% of the way there - and that’s no easy task! Excel has been the primary tool of capitalism for decades now, it’s one of the most polished pieces of software ever (and yes I’m aware how annoying it can be sometimes lol)

OnlyOffice is sketchy.

If you are doing presentations I would highly recommend trying none of the above.

I only use markdown or one of the presentation ready things like marp or reveal.js.

So much better and it's just plain text or html.

You can manage presentations in git, find and replace just works, they look miles better and you can even do some neat tricks like having your students connect to a webpage and follow along on their own computers.

PowerPoint was and is a bad idea for presentations.

I'm honestly surprised you use lemmy, but never heard about LibreOffice. There are so many cool softwares that are probably waiting for you to find them out.

Forgive my ignorance...what's APL?

My only bad experience with this software is users moaning that it's not excel and word. And users using word/writer as a layout tool, without using the layout tools in that software: tab tab tab space space space space align left: why does nothing line up 😔